Widow denies fabricating story in Keith Clarke trial
Daughter corroborates account that only she and parents were home on night of raid
Published:Tuesday | June 4, 2024 | 12:10 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
The widow of slain chartered accountant Keith Clarke has questioned why none of the alleged gunmen who the defence claimed were on her property the night her husband was killed was caught or shot.
Noting that the army is there to defend Jamaica, retired senior education officer Dr Claudette Clarke further asked why her husband was the only one killed by the army if gunmen were on her premises.
The 65-year-old university lecturer, who completed her evidence on Monday after a little over a month on the witness stand, was responding to a suggestion from defence attorney Linton Gordon that the gunmen were at her home firing at an army helicopter on the night of the incident.
The 63-year-old chartered accountant was shot 21 times during the raid at his home on May 27, 2010, by members of the security forces in search of then fugitive Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, who was wanted by United States authorities for drug and gunrunning offences.
Three soldiers – lance corporals Greg Tingling, Odel Buckley, and Private Arnold Henry – were implicated in Clarke’s death and are currently being tried for his murder in the Home Circuit Court.
The defence, however, is contending that Coke and a group of gunmen were in the basement of the Clarkes’ home on the night of the raid and had fired at the security forces before escaping in bushes at the back of the premises.
But Dr Clarke has insisted that she, her husband and her daughter were the only ones at the home that day.
NOBODY THERE
She further maintained that there were no men in her basement and that when the gunshots started, the family wanted to seek refuge in the basement but could not find the key to open the grille.
“I will repeat it a hundred times, a million times: there was nobody there,” she said.
Gordon, however, told her that she was making up stories during her evidence and adjusting her account to protect her husband’s reputation.
But this was strongly rejected by Dr Clarke.
“I did not make up any story. I lived it!” she shouted, moments before apologising to the judge for losing her temper.
Before that, she told him: “I came here to give evidence. Nothing is going to bring back my husband. I don’t need to make any adjustment.”
Under further cross-examination, Dr Clarke denied knowing that Coke went by the aliases ‘Omar Clarke’ and ‘Clarkie’.
She also testified that she had no knowledge of her husband providing private accounting work for Coke and his father, Lester Lloyd ‘Jim Brown’ Coke.
Meanwhile, her daughter Britney, who started her testimony on Monday, said she was home sleeping on the night of the incident, when she was startled by an explosion, like a bomb, on top of her house.
The witness said she was hit with feelings of terror and confusion before she heard her mother in the corridor instructing her to get underneath the bed.
However, she said that her mother, who her father joined, quickly changed her mind and told them they would go to the basement.
The witness further corroborated her mother’s evidence that they could not gain entry as they could not find the key to the grille and they all went to her parents’ master bedroom.
She also told the court that no one else was in her home besides her parents that night.
She will continue her evidence today.